Rust Server Quickstart

A Rust server is a living thing: monthly forced wipes, plugins, admins, and a community that notices when you get any of it wrong. This quickstart covers connecting, the identity and convars that define your server, Oxide and Carbon plugins, and wipe day. Panel basics are in Access Your Game Server Panel.

Connect#

Press F1 in Rust and enter client.connect IP:28015 (or your allocated port), or find the server in the browser by its hostname. Rust also uses an RCON port (28016 by default) and, optionally, the Rust+ companion port; each needs its own allocation.

Identity, hostname, map#

The Startup tab exposes the core variables: hostname, description, header image URL, max players, world size, seed, and the server identity (the folder name your data lives under, server/<identity>/). Persistent convars go in server/<identity>/cfg/server.cfg:

server.hostname "NoBull Networks | 2x | Weekly"
server.description "Fresh wipes every Thursday."
server.maxplayers 100
server.worldsize 3500
server.seed 12345
decay.upkeep_period_minutes 1440
rcon.password "long-random-string"

Owners and moderators#

From the panel Console:

ownerid 7656119XXXXXXXXXX "alex" "owner"
moderatorid 7656119XXXXXXXXXX "sam" "mod"
server.writecfg

server.writecfg saves them to users.cfg so they survive restarts. Owners have every console command; moderators a subset. For anything else, use plugin permissions.

Oxide or Carbon plugins#

Where your server type includes a modding framework (uMod/Oxide or Carbon), plugins are .cs files dropped into oxide/plugins/ (or carbon/plugins/); they load live and write their config to the matching config/ folder. Grant permissions from the console:

oxide.grant group default kits.starter
oxide.usergroup add 7656119XXXXXXXXXX admin
oxide.reload Kits

Plugins are the biggest source of lag and crashes; add a few at a time and read the console.

Wipe day#

Facepunch forces a map wipe on the first Thursday of each month with the client update; many servers wipe weekly. To wipe the map, stop the server and delete server/<identity>/proceduralmap.*.map and *.sav (or change the seed); to wipe blueprints as well, delete player.blueprints.*.db. Take a backup first, and schedule a warning broadcast beforehand.

Updates#

When Rust updates, old servers refuse new clients. Restart from the panel and the install routine fetches the current build; update your modding framework in the same window, since Oxide and Carbon ship matching releases within hours of each Rust patch.

Performance#

Rust rewards single-core speed and RAM: a 3500 world with 50 players wants several GB, and world size and plugin count are the two knobs that matter. Watch the panel graphs, and remember resource upgrades are prorated; see Upgrade or Downgrade a Plan.